Browsing: Army-Navy game

For the first time this season, all three Commander in Chief’s Trophy contenders will play home games on the same day: Army West Point hosting Tulane at Michie Stadium, Air Force battling Utah State in Colorado Springs, and Navy facing Southern Methodist in Annapolis, the newly minted hip-hop capital of Maryland. Six things you should know about a home-cooked Saturday afternoon: 1. Navy and the CFP. After the Mids’ 45-20 upset win over Memphis last weekend, Navy found itself 20th in the College Football Playoff rankings, which will determine the four semifinalists that compete for the national championship and will set…

A day before one of the biggest weekends on the service academy football calendar, take in a trio of tidbits about the biggest weekend: 1. Spirit spot contest. Need tickets for this year’s game? Have a decent video camera? You might be covered. The game’s official spirit spot video contest launched late last month. You can submit your video to armynavyfootballgame@gmail.com; a Go Army and a Go Navy winner each will receive four tickets, four on-field passes and a parking pass for the Dec. 12 showdown in Philadelphia. Not familiar with the genre? Click on some of our reviews from last year’s spots. The…

Workouts are underway. College football teams are taking shape under the hot August sun. Wall-sized coolers of “Falcon Fuel” are being unveiled in a massive ribbon-cutting ceremony … that last one might be an Air Force-only thing. Regardless, weekends for service academy gridiron fans soon will involve the traditional rivalry smack-talk and the more recent tradition of smashing buttons on the remote control, trying to find your team’s game on one of the approximately 73 cable sports networks in time for that 3:30 p.m. kickoff … or was it noon? Or did they play last night? The below schedule (all times Eastern) should help,…

The Army-Navy game has made some rare offseason headlines in the last few weeks — not for any on-field reasons, but as an inconvenient outlier for college football’s new playoff system. For Army West Point and Navy fans whose college football season begins and ends on the same Saturday in December, here’s a quick primer: The rankings that determine which teams will play in the College Football Playoff, and the four other top-tier bowl games played on or before New Year’s, come out the weekend before the Army-Navy game. Last year, this simply meant the rankings ignored the game, but that…

Could a team lose the Commander in Chief’s Trophy and win that shiny trophy on the right in the same year? Yes, it could. But wagering on it might be a bad idea. The College Football Playoff begins this season, with four teams from the NCAA’s top tier selected to face off in a single-elimination tournament to crown a champion. It’s a history-making innovation … unless you count the postseason for nearly every other team sporting event on the planet. Regardless, the group said Monday that it will make its semifinalist selections public on Dec. 7, live on ESPN before…

Army stumbles. Navy capitalizes. Mix in snow. Repeat. A simple formula, sure, but the Arctic conditions and stingy defenses in Philadelphia are keeping both the Black Knights and Mids from doing anything too complicated. In the first quarter, Navy followed an Army fumble with Quinton Singleton’s 58-yard run, setting up a field goal. In the second, Navy followed an Army personal-foul penalty with a 39-yard touchdown run by Noah Copeland, leading to a 10-0 lead. Later, the Army offense stalled and forced the Black Knights to punt from deep within their own territory. The next play, quarterback Keenan Reynolds watched…

March-ons are complete (check back soon for more photos). Cadets and mids are in their respective corners. The predicted “wintry mix” hasn’t shown up, replaced instead by on-again, off-again light snow. The hype is over. Well, almost — here’s the Navy’s top officer, Adm. Jon Greenert, offering his perspective from Philadelphia. OK, now the hype is over. Three quick hits as Army and Navy fans settle in: 1. In case of pass, break glass: The Mids and Black Knights finished near the top of major-college football when it comes to the ground game thanks to their use of run-heavy triple…

Three years ago, Katie McHugh — daughter of one soldier, sister of another — got a text from her younger sister. “Kelly,” it said, “you need to come home now.” Let McHugh tell you the rest of the story from that day in May 2010 — how she feared the worst for her brother, who’d deployed to Iraq, only to find out her father, Col. John M. McHugh, 46, had died in a suicide-bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, on what was supposed to be a two-week visit. He left behind a wife, five children and, at the time, one grandchild.…

If you missed our first batch of Army-Navy spirit spots — inspired by Justin Timberlake, phone and insurance commercials, and David Hasselhoff, in rough order of artistic reputation — click here. Last week’s quartet did not include the winners of the game’s official contest, which were named Monday on the game’s official blog. Here’s the Army winner, sent in by Maj. Randall Stillinger of the 36th Combat Aviation Brigade, featuring a joint operation gone horribly, humorously wrong: The Navy winner, sent in by James Smith, plays on the Mids’ win streak and incorporates a children’s TV callback: Both winners receive…

When the Midshipmen take the field for the 2013 Army-Navy football game, their uniforms will showcase a history as storied as the Annapolis-West Point rivalry itself. The Nike Pro Combat uniform starts with a burlap-patterned base layer emblazoned with “Don’t Give Up the Ship.” The saying was the last command of Capt. James Lawrence, commander of the frigate Chesapeake, who died of wounds from small arms fire during the War of 1812. Unfortunately, Chesapeake ended up falling to the British. But not long after Lawrence’s death, Commodore Oliver Perry would fly a flag reading “Don’t give up the ship.” This…